The Summer We Lost Alice (30 page)

In
Meddersville, Willy Proost's disappearance had been upsetting, causing parents to walk or drive their children to school and to restrict the children to play dates. Free-form roaming of children in carefree packs came to an abrupt end, as did any unsupervised playground activity. Neighborhood watches were reinvigorated.

Now the town was in full lock-down mode. Similarities were drawn to that summer twenty-five years ago. Everyone seemed to labor under
a sense of inevitable doom. Marianne Mackie's mother talked about canceling Sunday's birthday party.

"All of those children in my house," she said, "
it'll be like a smorgasbord for a child killer. How could he resist?"

"We'll all be there," Cat assured her over the phone. "There won't be a single unescorted child at the party."

"Could you bring Sammy? I'd feel so much better if an officer of the law were there."

Cat rolled her eyes and said she'd see. She hung up the phone and thought about Mrs. Mackie's request. The more she thought on it, the more it began to look like a reasonable precaution.

An unnamable evil had returned to Meddersville, one that had defied all their attempts to identify and thwart a quarter-century ago. It had left their community as mysteriously as it arrived, like a great white shark migrating to new waters, and now it was back.

Would it leave before it claimed its third victim?

Would it leave even then?

Or had it come to stay?

* * *

Flo and Catherine and the kids navigated their days on autopilot. Meals were prepared. Laundry was laundered. Homework worked. All chores attended to, not quite in silence but devoid of frivolous
banter. The wolf was at the door and he was hungry for the blood of children. It was no time to let your guard down, not even for a moment.

The deputy's brother showed up
to replace the ravaged screen. He had a boy who'd be starting school next year. He was thinking about home schooling so his wife could keep an eye on their son.

Cat saw Sammy at Mina's one lunch hour but they sat separately and didn't speak.

One afternoon, Flo drove Ethan and Heather out to see Agent Myer. He was not answering his telephone so they arrived unannounced. He did not answer their knock. Ethan called to him through the door.

"Agent Myer—it's Ethan
Opos. You knew me as Ethan Opochensky. It was twenty-five years ago—"

The door opened
, revealing Myer in a T-shirt and boxer shorts.

"I know who you are and how long it's been," he said. His breath smelled of alcohol. He regarded Flo and Heather. "Come in. I'll put on pants."

His house was surprisingly neat. Spartan. A bottle of cheap scotch sat on the coffee table.

He returned wearing a dress shirt and a pair of slacks, both of which were in need of pressing. He clasped Flo's hand warmly and asked for an introduction to Heather. He gestured them to seats in the living room.

"I won't insult you by offering you any of this swill," he said, "but if you don't mind—" He filled his glass. "I don't have to ask why you're here. I just don't know what the hell you expect me to do about it."

"We just thought—maybe you knew something you hadn't shared with the
... with anyone," Ethan said.

"You're the psychic. You tell
me
what's going on."

"It's an act. You know that. I know it. Everybody knows it."

Flo shifted in her chair. Heather touched her hand and smiled.

"Well, almost everybody," he said.

"What about witches, Mr. Opos? Do you still believe in witches?"

"That was a long time ago. I was a kid."

"Yes it was. But you were being honest with me for a moment and now you're dodging. That worries me."

"Sure, I believe in witches. Not the pointy-hatted variety, obviously, the flying broomstick types. Those are a fairy tale. But there are plenty of self-proclaimed witches out there.
Wiccans. Look them up on the internet. Do you Google, Agent Myer?"

"Do you still think Mrs. Nichols kidnapped your cousin Alice
... stole her youth?"

"It sounds pretty far-fetched to me these days."

"You know that she died in Florida not long after that summer, that her daughter took over the home?"

"Yes, I met Miss
Lilian."

"And?"

"She struck me as a kind-hearted woman, a bit of a romantic. I understand she cared for your mother."

"Hm. Yes. Yes, she did, and admirably well. Her care transcended the commonplace." He took a long draw from this glass. "Her charitable impulses may not have served her well. Imagine living all those years surrounded by old age and death. It strikes me as a lonely life—a life rich in
... ghosts."

His glass was nowhere nearly empty, but he topped it up.

"I think you know whereof you speak," Ethan said.

Myer gave his glass a Shakespearean wave.

"Whereof you speak," he said, rounding the syllables. "Yes, yea, verily. I do indeed know whereof I speak. Would you like to meet my ghosts, Mr. Opos?"

Ethan nodded.
"Very much."

Myer rose a bit unsteadily and motioned for them to follow. He led them to his study.

Like the rest of his house, the room was sparsely furnished. Along the walls sat file boxes, except for one wall that was dominated floor-to-ceiling by a corkboard. The corkboard was covered with photos. Snapshots of people, for the most part. Vacation pictures. Smiling people of all ages, fresh from the family album. Photos from crime scenes, photos from the morgue. Ethan did not need psychic powers to know that most of the people in these photos were dead.

"My ghosts," Myer said.
"Forty years' worth of unsolved homicides and missing persons. It's amazing how many people disappear, by choice or by accident, every year—how many lives are cut short with no one ever being brought to account."

Flo walked to the wall
. She pulled down a small photo cut from a school yearbook. Alice, wearing a plaid dress, scowling at the camera. Flo held the picture reverently.

"
Your Alice," Myer said. "I'm sorry. Another of my spectacular failures."

Flo extended the photo to Myer
. He waved it away.

"Keep it," he said. "I should take them all down and burn them." He took a long draft from his glass.

Heather stepped up behind Flo and gazed at the photo.

"I remember that day. I was so mad you made me wear that dress."

"I sewed that dress myself. You hated it."

"It must have broken your heart," Heather said. "I don't know how I could have been so cruel."

"You were a child, you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. Children are ignorant. It takes an adult to choose to be cruel."

Ethan noticed Myer's puzzled look.

"It's complicated," Ethan said. "Come on. We'll tell you all about it. You'll want to top off that drink."

* * *

Myer had been surprisingly receptive to the notion that Heather contained the transplanted soul of Alice.

"We've employed psychics occasionally over the years to help with cases," he said. "When we were desperate, grasping at straws. Most of them struck me as being sincere. The results were insignificant. Oh, sometimes they'd hit pay dirt, but no more often than you'd expect from random chance.

"On the other hand, anyone who came forward with psychic evidence automatically went on the suspects list. Sometimes that paid off, as well."

"Why would they come forward if they were guilty?" Flo said.

"To throw us off the track, because they think they're cleverer than us. Anybody who commits murder is either stupid or recklessly impulsive. Or nuts. Truth be told, a lot of cases solve themselves by the stupid things the criminals do."

"Like return to the scene of the crime twenty-five years later and kidnap more kids, while pretending to be trying to solve the case," Ethan said.

"You've got it. Don't take it personally, Mr. Opos."

"But Ethan was just a kid back then," Heather said.

Myer shrugged. "That doesn't mean he's innocent. It's a connection. You connect the dots and hope a picture appears. As for you, young lady—" he turned to Heather, "you could be a scam artist, trying to con a bereaved family out of its life savings. Or you could be laboring under a delusion, motivated by an honest desire to do something good, which is often the result of feelings of inadequacy—"

"Are you an FBI agent or a psychologist?" Heather asked.

"Neither, anymore. Now I run a golf course. Do you play?"

"Only if there's a windmill and topiary.
So you think I'm laboring under a delusion."

"I think it's a possibility. On the other hand, it could be true. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
—"

"Come on, Myer," Ethan said. "You're a man of facts. You don't believe in witches or spirits or ghosts or—"

"I've shown you my ghosts."

"Figurative ghosts.
Unsolved mysteries. You aren't telling me you've seen literal ghosts."

"No, I'm not. Have I seen my ghosts? No. But I've heard them. They whisper in my ears. They touch me. They haunt my dreams. On nights alone in this house, they keep me company. I'm aware of them on a level that transcends the known senses. Oh, they are real, believe me, they are real. But I know better than to try to convince you of that.

"So I'm not going to discount out-of-hand this young woman's claim. I am not going to endorse it, but I'm not going to dismiss it. I'm going to keep an open mind.

"I suggest you do the same, Ethan, if you want to find out who killed your cousin. Now if you'll excuse me—" Myer held the half-empty bottle aloft. "This bottle isn't going to empty itself."

* * *

That night they told Cat about their meeting with former-agent Myer.

"What about Sammy?" Flo said. "Has he spoken to his father?"

"Not that I know," Cat said. "It's been three days. That's the usual gestational period for a question to take root in his head and grow large enough for him to do something about it. I'll find some reason to drop in on him tomorrow."

"Speaking of three days," Flo said, "that dog will have been in the shelter for three days tomorrow morning. When do they open?"

"Late," Cat said. "One of Jimmy's dogs got out and was impounded a few weeks ago. I had to cancel an appointment. Around eleven, I think."

"Then I want to be there by ten."

"Whatever for?"

"So no one adopts him first, of course," Flo said. "We'll put his bed in the garage."

AFTER BREAKFAST and a shower, Ethan went looking for Heather. He found her in Alice's room contemplating the photo of Alice as the Queen of Bohemia in her cereal box crown, standing next to Boo. She sat on the bed with the photo in her lap. Ethan took a seat next to her.

"Mosquitoes," she said.

"All right," Ethan said, "I'll play your silly game. Mosquitoes. And ... beer."

"I'm getting a feeling, looking at this picture, of mosquitoes."

"It was summer in Kansas. Yes, there were mosquitoes. Alice didn't seem bothered by them. I thought I was going to be sucked dry. I had little red bumps all over my face and arms that itched like crazy. Funny how that just came back to me. Aunt Flo treated the bites with calamine lotion until I looked like a circus clown. I got religion about insect repellent whenever we—"

"Not that.
Alice, in this picture. She's thinking about mosquitoes."

Ethan took the picture and looked at it.

"What's the dog thinking?" he said.

Heather snatched the picture back.

"Get serious. I remember this afternoon. I liked you a lot right then. I didn't always, but that day I did."

"We'd hatched a plot. It was my idea, actually. I'd lost her ball—a baseball signed by this minor league player. She thought it was a big deal and I'd thrown it to Boo and he'd run off with it and we'd lost it. We had this plan to get it back. Yeah. We were close right then."

"Where did the mosquitoes come into it?"

"There were always mosquitoes. There's no reason she'd be—"

His voice trailed off. He lifted a finger to his nose to check for leakage. Nothing, but he'd felt a twinge.

"What?" Heather said.

"That baseball player, the one who signed the ball. His name was 'Skeeter' something. She's thinking about her baseball, signed by Skeeter. Skeeter Barnes."

"Mosquitoes.
Skeeters."

"It's just a coincidence. Why didn't you say 'barns'? She could have been thinking about barns, or mosquitoes
in
barns. That might have meant something. Everything you come up with is vague and ... and ... inconclusive!"